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FIRE RISK ASSESSMENTS

- A LEGAL REQUIREMENT

In the UK, it’s a legal requirement for a fire risk assessment to be carried out on almost all premises where people could be working. Under these regulations, the responsible person, called a duty holder in the Scotland regulations and appropriate person in the Northern Ireland regulations, is legally obliged to ensure the risk assessment is carried out and deal with any problems highlighted in the assessment.

The responsible person is typically the person who has primary responsibility for the premises. This could include facilities managers, owners of premises and managers of buildings. In multi-tenanted buildings, each tenant has to carry out a fire risk assessment of their premises and coordinate it with the assessment their landlord has carried out for their areas. In blocks of flats, the fire risk assessment needs to cover the common areas, such as stairs and corridors, but not necessarily the individual flats.

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The fire risk assessment has to be carried out to a competent standard. For small buildings, the owner or occupier of the premises is likely to be able to carry the assessment out themselves, as long as they familiarise themselves with the relevant guidance document. However, for buildings of any size or complexity, it is best to employ a professional fire risk assessor to carry out the assessment.

Fire Risk Assessors

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There’s a wide range of levels of expertise for fire risk assessors. Assessors at the most basic level will simply review your building against standard design codes and recommend that you upgrade any parts of the building that do not comply. Whilst the fire risk assessment itself may be cheap, this approach can often result in major costs to upgrade buildings to current standards.

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A more experienced fire risk assessor will be able to make reasoned judgements on the level of risk presented by non-compliance and decide whether the risk is tolerable. Even if changes are needed, they may be able to recommend alternative, more cost-effective solutions, such as changes to management procedures.

We pride ourselves on having fire risk assessors of the highest standard, supported by the rest of the company who can provide expert advice on almost all aspects of fire safety. By using The Alarm Hub, you are therefore sure that you will be given the best advice and receive the most cost-effective solutions.

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You can find out more about the legal requirements for fire risk assessments here: